02604cam a22002777 4500001000700000003000500007005001700012008004100029100002000070245015900090260006600249490004200315500002000357520134500377530006101722538007201783538003601855690013901891690005602030700002202086700002402108710004202132830007702174856003802251856003702289w15365NBER20150802142340.0150802s2009 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aGerber, Alan S.10aParty Affiliation, Partisanship, and Political Beliefsh[electronic resource]:bA Field Experiment /cAlan S. Gerber, Gregory A. Huber, Ebonya Washington. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc2009.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w15365 aSeptember 2009.3 aPolitical partisanship is strongly correlated with attitudes and behavior, but it is unclear from this pattern whether partisan identity has a causal effect on political behavior and attitudes. We report the results of a field experiment designed to investigate the causal effect of party identification. Prior to the February 2008 Connecticut presidential primary, researchers sent a mailing to a random sample of unaffiliated registered voters informing them of the need to register in order to participate in the upcoming primary. Comparing post-treatment survey responses to subjects' baseline survey responses, we find that those informed of the need to register with a party were more likely to affiliate with a party and subsequently showed stronger partisanship. Further, we find that the treatment group also demonstrated greater concordance than the control group between their pre-treatment latent partisanship and their post-treatment reported voting behavior and intentions and evaluations of partisan figures. Thus our treatment, which caused a strengthening of partisan identity, also caused a shift in subjects' candidate preferences and evaluations of salient political figures. This finding is consistent with the claim that partisanship is an active force changing how citizens behave in and perceive the political world. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web. 7aD72 - Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior2Journal of Economic Literature class. 7aH0 - General2Journal of Economic Literature class.1 aHuber, Gregory A.1 aWashington, Ebonya.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w15365.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w1536541uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w15365